America’s Inner Struggle

A look at the U.S. Civil Rights Movement – its history, purpose and achievements.

This paper summarizes the major events of the Civil Rights Movement – from the Jim Crow Laws, the Montgomery Bus Strike and the Civil Rights Bill. It looks at its impacts on U.S. legislation and history, and the overall lessons to be learned from this period. It compares the major issues which needed to be tackled in the 1950’s and 1960’s and how these efforts have now been moved into more minor struggles – equal employment rights, minority group’s academic rights and more.

` Since the end of the Civil War, many organizations had been created in order to put an end to racial injustice and equality in America, but progress was slow. It was not until the 1960s that progress was made, although it was made in a manner that cost the lives and imprisonment of many. Restaurants, hotels, night clubs, public facilities, and the school systems were still segregated during the early 1960s and educational and job opportunities for minorities were far below those available to the white majority. The African-American community, being in the minority, depended on the support of the white population. The Civil Rights Movement was at a peak from 1955 to 1965. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, guaranteeing basic civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race, after nearly a decade of nonviolent protests and marches, ranging from the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott to the student-led sit-ins of the 1960s to the huge March on Washington in 1963.`